Ephemeral: Interludes & Extras
by 3C
Summary: A series of intermission pieces that take place during, hinted, or prior to events in Ephemeral that expand the storyline. Also includes things that had to be cut. They may contain spoilers. Some are darker than the main content, and may be in more explicit detail.
1. Red: Ethan and Cynders

Backstory of Red meeting Ethan and Cynders.

* * *

 _Red_

More than several years had passed since Ethan, wearing that exact same cap, had crossed his path on Mt. Silver and challenged him. In the time since, Red had found himself on a long journey back to Pallet Town. With no money left—Charizard, in a fit, still blaming Red for the loss, refused to Fly him and had taken off—he'd taken to travelling on foot, and on Lapras's patient shelled back or Blastoise's stomach as its canons gently jetted out water, whenever they were near a stretch of water. Hearing rumours of a small boy with a large Typhlosion travelling throughout Kanto had not surprised him.

Red certainly remembered that day. For one, there'd been another person instead of a Pokemon encounter. For another, Ethan's accompanying Pokemon had been a Typhlosion: a Johto pokemon with a collar of pure flame towering over his small boy of a trainer. Red had large Pokemon too—Lapras, coming in at the highest at eight feet included—but even his fainted Venosaur hadn't intimidated Ethan the way that Typhlosion had Red.

For something so powerful, it'd been amazingly obedient. Lean, strong, powerful muscles and a lumbering, steady gait as it loped forward to step into battle. It followed in sync with every one of the small boy's commands. It wasn't unheard of, for trainers to form strong bonds with their Pokemon, particularly if they went along the battling route, but out of all the Pokemon that Ethan had brought out in battle, this one had seemed the deadliest. Touchable only by type advantage.

Red remembered the Typhlosion half for the image it'd presented when it was out in battle, a quarter for the fact that he'd actually blacked out, and the remaining quarter because it'd been quite the sight post-battle. Red had put Pikachu back in his pokeball for the first time in years, just in time to look up to see that giant of a Pokemon accept its Max Potion spray, and then crouch down to lie on its back eagerly.

As Ethan pet its stomach, scratched it, and gave it a good belly rub, the Typhlosion made a sound that Red could only describe the rumble as very pleased. "Cynders," the boy had said happily, "you did a good job." He glanced up at Red. "I'm Ethan, by the way! Nice to meet you."

Red himself forgot the names and the faces of the people he battled and won against. Losses weren't common, but as a young child, he hadn't thought more of it. Training had been all he needed. These days, it was difficult rehabilitating himself to people. He only half-remembered to phone his mother back, and he was still trying to talk to her like he did his Pokemon.

But if anyone asked him, he would have been honest. Silent, a terrible conversationalist, yes, but honest.

Red had battled Ethan and Cynders only once, and he'd never forgotten the sight of them.


	2. Cynders: Names

Set the beginning of Chapter 2.

 **Warnings:** Derisive/manipulative language of researchers, Of a Pokemon: Implied abuse/experimentation/mutilation

* * *

 _Cynders_

Names have not had meaning in this place, small and cramped space, in some time. It lumbers up, half to its feet, but it sways. The mouse warns it sharply but it ignores him. The mouse has identity, the mouse has value. He is not in the cage like it.

Its feet slides against its own waist as it pushes itself up. Struggles, to stand, to remember. It collapses against its own waste. Smell fills up its nose. It gags. Sick, weak, so pathetic, scum Pokemon terrible sample get another, get another. _What pride it has_ , it has heard jeered from its brethren in the other cages, the ones who have broken. As the days went by, the words turned to silence and the dead and sick and dying. _Who do you wait for, brother_ , it has heard asked before the Last left, _there is no one coming for us._

Its claws scrape against the muck and then at the bars. Solid cage. Stay and we'll make you stronger, my, you're so big, a perfect specimen. Specimen it is, specimen, specimen, somebody get rid of what it's holding, there's no point to it if it's not an item we can reuse. Be good or we'll hurt the one you belonged to, we'll tell him you're bad, he won't want to find you again isn't that sad isn't that terrible, he'll want to abandon you. Oh, poor you. Nobody wants you but us.

It shuffles, low and slow, and clasps its teeth slowly until it becomes tight around the cap. The scent has long since gone from now, but too important to leave behind, even if its jaw aches, its limbs shake. The scent is gone; that of a small child, skin soft and bare without its strange-feeling removable fur, prone to cuts and purpling colours, a little chub at the sides of its belly. The idea of small child feels like ghost Pokemon now, playing tricks on mind. Small child.

Small child Ethan.

The man is not dressed the same as other evil men, but Man wears red.

" _Red_ _won't hurt you_ ," Mouse is saying, but it is deaf in one ear now, can't hear out of it, so the word is muffled.

"You remember his name," Man says, calls again in a soft voice that is not sharp, but is not the one it listens for. "I know you do, Cynders."

It has a name but it has forgotten it until now. Names have no meaning here. No time, no life, no understanding. Just tests, tests, tests. Needles that hurt, and prick and make bleed. Pain. It cannot trust this man. Evil has taken away so much. Man can take the cap with no more of Ethan's scent.

Man is still looking at it. Red, Mouse called him. Red called Ethan's name.

It has only but seen red so much in its time, but in corpses, and on itself, matted deep into its own fur before they tore it away and its insides drew to breathe gasping, dying air. Its fear used to be it would turn ugly, unrecognizable, unfound by Ethan. Its fear used to be the faint scent of blood, its ears losing the sound of heartbeat as it pulsed and the blood grew thicker. Dyed the grass of Ethan Home the same red, flames of its own birth dyed the houses to ash.

Ethan. Small child Ethan.

It has been so long since it has heard Ethan's name. It has been so long. Like water in its throat, the death of flame in its gut. Ethan.


	3. Ethan: To Professor Elm's

Cut out of the prologue for length/lack of necessity.

* * *

 _Ethan_

"Morning!" he chirps at Lyra's mom, grabbing his bag from the couch; his mom packed it for him the night before, including his Trainer Card. It's good that she does, because he always tends to forget things. He still really can't believe it. His own Trainer Card.

Lyra's mom waves at him from the other side of her newspaper. She's got Lyra's Marill on the table, nibbling at her Pokemon food, while the bouncing blue ball of its tail wags to-and-fro happily.

"Pick a winner!" she calls as he disappears out the door.

Cyndaquil is his for sure. "I will!"

Professor Elm's lab isn't far from his house; just right next door. Ethan dashes neatly over, too excited to pay attention to anything else as he flings the door open excitedly and steps in.

"Professor!" Ethan calls.

The Professor's nowhere to be seen, which is surprising. Ethan remembers what Lyra once told him: Professor Elm studies Pokemon breeding, and he's the best there is. Which makes it doubly confusing why he isn't there now, because sometimes he and Lyra peek through the window at the side of the house to see if he actually does sleep, but he's always there. Always working, always looking frenzied and looking for things, always frantically going back and forth in his lab as his assistant helps him.

"He's scatterbrained," Lyra said once, and when Ethan got confused, she explained: "It means he loses things everywhere. Like _you_ ," she added, flicking his forehead, "losing your cap all the time, dummy."

Ethan hopes this doesn't mean that Professor Elm lost himself in his own lab, because it's not even that big. He can see the healing station right across from the room, and the cases are filled with pokeballs and all sorts of weird material he's not even sure about. ("Ethan!" he can almost hear his mom say. "Don't touch!") The assistant scientist isn't anywhere to be seen either, but the lights are still on like they were before he came in.

Bark Town is "energy-efficient," his mom explained, when he once asked about the turbine near their house. If nobody's in a room or using it, the power will turn off after ten minutes.

"Professor?" he calls out, voice a little bit lower, but even then, he's impatient. He's waited all his life-all ten years!-to have a Pokemon of his own, and he's not backing out now. Ethan peers behind the glass cases, squinting and even going as far as to peek underneath them to see if Professor Elm somehow got turned into some kind of a board Pokemon that only likes small, dark spaces. Nope. Nada.

He wanders in further in the lab, at the machine that looks pretty big, pretty complicated, and whose buttons Ethan is itching to touch. He doesn't though, because he spots a familiar white scientist's jacket on someone's body in the wires in the underneath.

Ethan walks to the other side, to where he can spot Professor Elm's rising hairline. "Professor?"

 _Bang!_ goes synonymous with "Ow!"

"I'm here for my Pokemon!" Ethan says, and then: "Are you okay?" as Professor Elm crawls gingerly out from underneath the wires, one hand clutched at the top of his head.

"I'm okay," the Professor tells him, but he's wincing. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here for my Pokemon," Ethan repeats dutifully a second time. "I'm ten!"

The Professor looks at him as though he's waiting for Ethan to continue.

"I'm ten," Ethan says.

" _Oh_ ," the Professor says, voice jolting. "That's right. That means you come in for your Pokemon."

"Uh-huh." Ethan's grinning wider and wider.

"I'm so sorry, it completely slipped my mind. Congratulations on your being ten, by the way."

 _That's a funny way to say happy birthday_ , Ethan thinks. "Thanks!" he says, either way, because he's pretty happy about turning ten, but the Professor's already continuing as if he hadn't said anything at all.

"I was just so concerned about-say, Ethan!" He stops himself short. "Do you know anything about my research?"

"-um-"

"But you know how Pokemon are carried in pokeballs these days, right? But before they were invented, people used to walk with them."

"Like Lyra," Ethan says happily. He's already thinking how he's going to walk with his own Pokemon, and how they're going to play together.

"Exactly! And I was wondering-well, postulating, more or less-I haven't gotten too far, but I've got the rough thoughts about it in relation to the entire thing." Professor Elm gestures to the side, where on the walls behind the laptop there are rows and rows of papers and diagrams and a lot of equations.

Ethan recognizes some of the signs from math, but that's about.

"Now, of course this is likely just ordinary news that we've always known, but perhaps walking with Pokemon might actually have its advantages. It could affect how they grow, evolve, develop. I imagine it's something more or less that will fall into Pokemon behaviour around humans, but, well that's Professor Oak's specialty and I'd like to have a bit more of a clue about it before I submit a theory to him."

"Cool," Ethan says, nodding. "Cool, cool, cool."

"He's amazing, honestly, I can't tell you how-"

"Can I pick my Pokemon?" Ethan asks, interrupting, bouncing on his feet. He's no good when people talk a lot at him.

"Oh, yes, yes."

 _Cyndaquil, Cyndaquil, Cyndaquil,_ Ethan chants in his head.

Clearing his throat, Professor Elm draws himself to his full height. "Ethan," he says very seriously, "I'm going to give you a Pokemon. He or she is going to be a big responsibility. I'm going to need you to walk beside them outside of their pokeball too-"

"I know!" Ethan says, hopping from one foot to another. "I know, I know! It's okay!"

The Professor smiles. "So who do you chose?"

"Cyndaquil!"


End file.
